Quality Presence

In the promotion of the culture of dialogue (see also Nota Bene), we often take for granted the importance of good presence. This does not mean that you and your dialogue partner can see, hear or touch each other. Nor does it mean your distance from each other. Or your location or the place where you are seen, heard or touched by your partner. It does not immediately refer to your attire, your clothes, your dress, your shoes, your hat, etc., although their type or form of attire can reflect an attitude which could be qualitative of you as a person.

Nota Bene: To Pope Francis this is often called “Culture of Encounter”. To him and to Cairo Grand Imam Al-Tayeeb this is culture of “Living Together” (Abu Dhabi Document).

Physical or bodily presence must have a quality to be considered good. Good presence, or quality presence in my dialogue vocabulary, is all about your person, that is, your attitude, your behaviour, your physical gestures and movements, your facial expressions, your silence and stillness, and your sense of self-consciousness and other- awareness. All these traits of your personality must be good, meaning acceptable.

In dialogue we communicate with our inner and outer personality. As already explained in a previous Shalom article, our internal and external dispositions bearing these qualities are manifested or expressed in quality presence, quality listening, quality openness and quality humility. Recall the four ways of engaging in dialogue. Moreover quality presence is also needed when in dialogue we listen with the third ear of the heart, when we are open in doctrinal discussion, and when we in humility share with our dialogue partner our personal faith relationship with God.

In the dialogue of life or living in peace with others even without mutual recognition, without communication, without gathering or meeting, that is, just being with others as good neighbor, mutual awareness of each other’s visible and physical presence cannot be avoided. This situation of neighborliness must have quality, it must be good. Respect for a fellow human being, observance of neighborhood policies and regulations, and non-judgmental attitude must qualify this presence.